Why A Nicaraguan Would Be Pro-Sandinista

This is a look at why many Nicaraguans were and still are pro-Sandinista. It is not intended to be a political debate or an FSLN (or MRS) endorsement. The information is based on talking to Nicaraguans about their situation.

I welcome similar pieces for other parties and "non-parties". I feel it would be very helpful for people not not in Nicaragua to help understand political realities.

First, the assumption is that we are talking about what a political party says they want to do. As I have never seen a party of "non-liars", I see no reason to put a discussion of "what they say vs. what they do" here.

The people I have talked to have lived here all their life with the possible exception of no more than 2 years in another country (US or Costa Rica). Only one wants to leave Nicaragua (for the US). They vary in age from 24 to 70s. Most are (but not all) relatively poor. Some rural, some living in Esteli proper.

As for real property ownership they vary from nothing to "my parents own ..." to a house or small farm. One owns a house with "questionable" title because there was a confiscation and then subsequent sale(s).

The most common complaint is that the national government does nothing here and, for the most part, never did. The exception was the Sandinista efforts in the early 1980s to create more access to education and health care. In addition, some mentioned benefiting from improvement in working contitions (labor laws) from the same period.

Most of these people are not anti-US government. That is, they don't say "I didn't have anyting to eat 20 years ago because of the US embargo." My opinion is that they just didn't see what was happening on a "world level" just like US citizens in the 1980s didn't see what the US was doing in Nicaragua. They just saw local problems.

This quote from David Chandler in January 1985 (http://www.davidchandler.com/writings/Nica.htm) helped fill in some blanks.

One of the Spanish-speaking students in our group had a long conversation at the disco with a couple of peasant farmers who had fought in the revolution. They told about helicopters dropping 500 lb. bombs on the town of Esteli. They told how the bombs started out as tiny dots way up high, and slowly grew as they fell. They said it was hard to predict where they would land or which way to run. Every building in Esteli was destroyed.

Everything we saw in Esteli had been rebuilt since 1979. They said conditions were much better now than before the revolution. The very fact that they could come to the disco at all was evidence of how things had improved. It was still expensive for them, but they could pay it. Before, even if they had had the money they wouldn't have been allowed in because of class discrimination. Now for the first time they had respect. One of them said, "Take this message back to the U.S. We're not communists, we're not Marxists, we're not Leninists, we're not capitalists. We have taken a little bit from each of these and we're doing what's best for us. This is the first time we've had anything and Reagan is trying to take it all away from us. The whole thing is so stupid--the whole world is on our side."

Some other interesting items in this article help frame the opinions
are have been hearing.

Agriculture: We asked about all the modern looking farms we had seen. He said these dated from the Somoza days. Somoza developed a good infrastructure for export crops, but not for food or domestic processing of raw materials. He said Nicaragua should be self sufficient in food within a year for the first time ever! The main problem in this could be the Contras. A large part of their efforts is put into destroying crops.

You need to realize that Somoza left Nicaragua with a large foreign debt (which the Sandinistas agreed to assume). Thus, people had jobs but had to buy food. Many people who didn't have any land said they had worked for others but there was really no way they would ever "move up". If someone acquired land it was almost always given to them by a parent or other family member by splitting their property.

Our West German friend gave us a detailed run-down of the elections and the positions of each of the seven parties that ran. He described all the precautions the electoral commission took to prevent fraud.

His comment about Arturo Cruz, who the Reagan administration held up as the only viable democratic candidate, was that Cruz lived in Washington D.C. until shortly before the election and had no base of support in Nicaragua. When Cruz had a rally in Esteli only 60 people turned out to hear him and most of those were from out of town.

Note that he missed the fact that Arturo Cruz was sleeping with Oliver North's secretary, Fawn Hall, at the time--just another interesting "political coincidence" that certainly helped North be "objective". No one here mentioned Arturo Cruz but everyone can tell you when Daniel has been here as well as a cattle show or about anything else. In fact, the most common Daniel complaint is that he says the same thing each time he comes. Well, you have to go listen to be able to say that.

On January 10 we attended the inauguration of Daniel Ortega, who is seen by most of the world outside the U.S. as the first democratically elected president of Nicaragua. It was a major historic event for the Nicaraguan people. No 4th of July event I have ever been to could match the feeling of national pride and celebration in the air that day.

This comment reflects what I hear. I didn't have anyone tell me Daniel Ortega is an angel and only a few said the FSLN was "perfect" (and they are young idealists). (Many said they were Sandinistas but not Danielistas.) But, more often than not, I heard that the difference that Sandinistas brought to their life was a chance to control their destiny rather than have it dictated by something very external.

CAFTA also came up. Virtually everyone that mentioned it (maybe 1/3 of the people) had good knowledge of it, understood what it was "supposed to do" and understood what it would do. They knew, for example, that it wasn't "free" as it contained many quotas and that it certainly wasn't "equal" for each side.

So, bottom line, who are pro-Sandinista? People that saw no chance for upward mobility under Somoza and/or under current neo-Liberal attempts to "fix" Nicaragua. They are not "welfare bums" as is a common term in the US. They can't be because there is no welfare. Family, not government, keeps people alive here.

For them, under the current direction (privatization and international control of electricity and telephone, threatened privatization of water, and "pro-business", they see their future as working on someone else's farm or in a "Free Trade Zone" with no option for anything else. Ever. They feel that a Sandinista position may give them a chance for a change. That is, to control their own destiny.